For years, a usually ironic battle has been going on between fans who argue or Die hard may or may not be considered a Christmas movie. The events in the movie take place on Christmas Eve, but the movie was released in the summer of ’88.
McTiernan’s take on why the film became a Christmas movie goes much deeper – with multiple moving parts.
The director begins to be Die hard-Christmas conversation by saying that the explanation will be presented in a certain order, just like the shots in one of his movies.
“Telling a story is not an arbitrary activity. There’s a certain word in a certain place in a certain order, that’s the right word. And if it’s a movie, there’s the right shot,” says McTiernan. “And if you have guts, you try to figure out what the right shot is.”
From that moment on, McTiernan turns to a discussion of paintings. The painter, he says, needed to discover a small element of the play on which to focus in order to find satisfaction or escape. He points to the late 18th century painter Jacques-Louis David, who gave the nobles he painted “trustworthy faces”, even if they were not wealthy or worthy of mention.
“And with that, the king in effect lost control of the content,” says the filmmaker, who also links David’s work to the French Revolution.
After the somewhat confusing introduction, McTiernan enters the Die hard link. He notes that he was inspired by the Bedford Falls that became the Pottersville moment It’s a wonderful life which he believes was intended to represent unbridled capitalism.
McTiernan says he only signed up to direct Die hard after producer Joel Silver agreed to let John McClane be a normal, everyday person, who would make the people of authority seem silly. McTiernan says he had an agenda that was mostly understood by the cast and crew, who enjoyed the subversion.
“We didn’t intend it to be a Christmas movie, but the joy that came from it turned it into a Christmas movie,” says McTiernan.
But the video doesn’t end there. McTiernan then establishes a link between Die hard and the current state of American politics.
“There are really bad people,” says the director. “I hope at Christmas this year that you will all remember that authoritarians are low, angry men who have gone to rich people and said, ‘If you give us power, we will make sure that no one takes your things.’ And their obsessions with guns and boots and uniforms and police cars and all those things And all those things that you collect with power meant to scare us, meant to silence us so we don’t kick them out of the way and decent people of the world continue to build a future. “
Watch the video below.